Claude Monet: “To see, we must forget the name of the things we are looking at”

Claude Monet

In the Mind of Great Artists

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“To see, we must forget the name of the things we are looking at.”
Claude Monet

 

Our experience is conditioned by the way we perceive the world.

Monet proposes to “liberate” our perception. To look at a tree without knowing what a tree should be like. Even more: without knowing what it is, without even knowing its name. To paint what one really sees, not what one thinks one sees.

To capture the instant by eliminating the action of our intellect.

The eye as the painter’s beginning and end.

The impressionists, among whom Monet is probably the most representative figure, were dedicated to perception. How we see things. Impressionism no longer reproduced, but captured the “impression.”

How do we see things? We see small, individual spots of color, which create the impression of light and blend in the eye to form tones and shapes.

As we can see in his paintings, these brushstrokes of pure colors in some areas may remind us of “abstract painting.” This is why Monet’s work (mainly the haystacks and paintings of water lilies and water gardens) is considered a precursor of the abstraction that would come during the following century.

Monet thought that “light was the most important character in the painting.” Something that fascinated and obsessed the artist (and all the impressionists) is that at every moment of the day the light changes, and this causes constant changes in the atmosphere that surrounds things: “the beauty of things changes every minute.” Impressionists were fascinated by how light changes along the day and this changes the atmosphere that surrounds things. This has fascinated artists of all times.

If in order to see an object we put aside the intellect, the experience we have of it, its “name,” we will not only see it with amazement, as if it were the first time, but we will enjoy it in a thousand different ways.

 

Image: Arrival of a Train (1877)

 

Recommended links:

Timeline: Moments of Monet.

Characteristic Elements of Impressionist Painting.

Monet’s path to Impressionism.

Impressionism.

The First Series of Monet.

The Rouen Cathedral.

The Last Paintings of Monet: a Touch of Expressionism?

Impression, Sunrise (1872).

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